BubbleStream

Randy Blackwell

Rise of the Magi

Synopsis

An epic battle looms as Omar, Myles, and Kasey train a new breed of Magi for war!
Omar Metzger, earth's most brilliant scientist, is in a race against time to find his sister in another dimension before she dies in a coma. He has one week before his funding is cut so without hesitation he enters a portal to an unknown world to prove his findings and hopefully save his sister.
Myles Callaghan, an illusionist con-artist, has bitten off more than he can chew, swindling a Mafia Don out of several million dollars. On the run, Myles goes much further than he could have imagined. He encounters Omar on Musterion, and they form the Order of the Magi.
Kasey is a hired assassin with orders to assassinate the Israeli Prime Minister. Betrayed, Kasey must escape before she is captured. As she crosses an archway in the Prime Minister's basement she realizes she has crossed much more than the threshold of a door--rather a portal.
As these three unlikely companions join forces on Musterion, they must find their way through an ever changing maze, fight their inner demons, and then escape to a new world, Soterion, before the forces of evil close in on them. Rise of the Magi is filled with battle action, steampunk fantasy, and a touch of romance, It's an epic tale of their search for truth and ultimately redemption. Book One in the Forgotten Portals Trilogy. FICTION / Christian / Fantasy

Author Biography

Author Insight

Misaki

Omar was a hard character to write because he is very little like me. He is a cold calculating scientist and in the first draft his sister Misaki didnt even exist. But as I read this novel to my wife she asked me why she was suposed to care about Omar. I explored possible options of how to add some warmth and humanity to him. Then I thought of the coma patients he used in experiments. What if one of them was his sister? Then Omar's background started to form in my mind. A jewish orphin child prodigy adopted by a Japanese family who also had a child prodigy daughter. With the loss of his parents Omar decided to let her into his heart and through the years she had been the only one Omar had done that with. This made Omar more human but exclusively so.

Book Excerpt

Rise of the Magi

1

The Sword and

the Shepherd

Dr. Omar Metzger was a scrawny man with shoulder length black hair

that had begun to grey on the sides. He stood stiffly next to his sister’s bed,

holding her hand and anxiously checking his watch every few minutes

while stifling a yawn. He’d rushed Misaki to the hospital early that evening

and hours later, the lack of sleep was catching up to him.

His sister had been in a coma since she was a child, and for the last sev-

eral years Omar had been keeping her at his home where she was taken

care of by a nurse and by Tyree, his personal assistant. Last night she had

several seizures. While Omar could deal with them, he didn’t have the

proper equipment at his home to evaluate the possible damage being done

to her brain so he had brought her to the hospital. They’d done an MRI on

her when she arrived, and Omar was now anxiously waiting by her hospital

bed for the results. He was wearing his lab coat and had his spectacles on,

which made him look official, but he felt so helpless.

He sat down and bent over to speak quietly into her ear. He talked to

her as he always did, even though he’d tested her brain activity and found

her to be completely un-responsive. “Misaki-chan,” he called to her. (The

“-chan” in Japanese was often attached to a child’s name when kinship was

implied.) “I’ve spoken to the doctor,” he whispered loudly. “He knows of us

and he’ll give you the best treatment possible. We’re waiting for the—”

But then the doctor entered the room, and Omar stood to greet him. “Is

she okay?”

He sighed, “I’m not sure. There’s no damage but…well, you’re a

doctor. Take a look.”

He handed the charts to Omar who flipped through them and saw that

Misaki, for the first time since she’d been in a coma, was exhibiting ex-

treme amounts of brain activity.

Omar looked at the doctor hopefully and asked, “This is good, right?”

1

The Rise of the Magi

“I don’t know,” said the doctor. “Her brain activity is that of someone

who’s in distress.”

Omar took a closer look and realized that he was right.

As he took his sister’s hand again, her fingers suddenly began to spasm

as they sometimes did, and she was gagging on the food line that went

down her throat. The doctor responded quickly to remove it.

Omar could swear that he heard her try to speak. His eyes widened in

surprise, and he bent over her again as he spoke in Japanese. “Misaki-chan,

can you hear me? Don’t worry! Everything is okay.”

“No,” he heard her say. “Come quick! Bring the gambler.”

Omar grabbed the doctor’s collar with one hand and whispered in-

tensely, “Get your team in here now!” The doctor ran out of the room,

calling for other doctors and nurses as he hurried down the hall.

Misaki spoke again ever so faintly but this time in Hebrew. “Omar, she

must get the sword to the carpenter.”

Tears flowed down Omar’s cheeks like a flood. “What sword, Misaki-

chan? Who’s the carpenter?”

Her voice was less than a faint whisper now, but he heard her say,

“Matthan.”

A team of doctors and nurses came running into the room. But as they

did, Misaki went into violent convulsions. Omar quickly moved away so

that the team could take over.

Omar could hear her heart beating on the monitor and knew that it was

way too fast. The world for Omar stopped moving as Misaki suddenly flat

lined. Doctors and nurses were scrambling everywhere. A nurse entered the

room with a defibrillator, and Omar snatched it out of her hands.

Before anyone could take it away from him, he had prepared her chest

and yelled, “Clear!”

The doctors and nurses scrambled out of the way, fearful that they’d get

electrocuted. Someone called for security, but Omar had already sent one

charge through Misaki’s body. He had the medical training to do this better

than anyone else in the room, so no one tried to stop him. His worst night-

mare was unfolding before him. He couldn’t lose her. Without her, his life

was nothing. None of it mattered if he couldn’t save Misaki.

He yelled again, “Clear!”

But her heart wouldn’t restart. Finally, one of the doctors wrestled the

defibrillator from Omar’s hands. Omar began frantically pounding on her

2

The sword and the shepherd

chest, trying to start her heart manually. He stopped and trembled for a mo-